Jay Cost

1. I am not a witch! Christine O’Donnell’s “I am not a witch” opening salvo in her ad campaign. Normally an ad from a candidate denying she is a witch would be the last thing heard from a campaign doomed to defeat and oblivion. However, these are far from normal times. O’Donnell does two things with this ad. First, she shows the public that she is a real person and not the cartoon character created by the mainstream media and the denizens of the Left, and she begins to position herself as what she is: the ultimate outsider. Not a bad strategy in a political year that will be kind to outsiders and cruel to insiders.

2. Gallup Poll-Gallup for some reason has been late this year applying a likely voter screen in their polls. The closer you get to an election the more reliable likely voter polls get, and the less reliable registered voter polls are. In a high turnout election, Gallup predicts a 13 point Republican advantage among likely voters and in a low voter turnout election Gallup predicts an 18 point Republican advantage among likely voters. Go here to read the results of the poll. For comparison’s sake, in the 1994 election when the Republicans took both the House and the Senate, in the Congressional elections the GOP had a six point advantage on election day. Continue Reading →

“Make no mistake. This bill is so unpopular because it has all the characteristics that most Americans find so noxious about Washington.

It stinks of politics. Why is there such a rush to pass this bill now? It’s because the President of the United States recognizes that it is hurting his numbers, and he wants it off the agenda. It might not be ready to be passed. In fact, it’s obviously not ready! Yet that doesn’t matter. The President wants this out of the way by his State of the Union Address. This is nakedly self-interested political calculation by the President – nothing more and nothing less.